Episode 3: Andrew Parr of SJB

“I’m loving working from home,” says Andrew Parr, interior design director at SJB. The transition to working from home has seen him spending more time “back on the tools” as well as coaching junior designers and has given him a rewed appreciation for some of the unique features of his home.

“One thing that’s been good for me [is] I’m more back on the tools, back on the pencil,” Andrew explains. He is also focusing on “training a lot of our younger staff now about that process – you can’t just be relying on a good render, it’s about deliverables and having an interesting and new idea. So, in that respect, I’m probably more in touch with some of my staff than I’ve ever been!”

Now that he is no longer in the office, work takes place from his home, a historic mansion in Melbourne’s St Kilda. “It’s got a tower, it’s a little bit silly, and that’s why we were attracted to the house. It used to be painted beige, and we painted it pink – as you do!” Andrew says. “I’ve actually embraced time here …it’s given us a new joy to experience the house properly.”

For Andrew, his Herman Miller task chair is the ideal balance of form and function. “The beauty about this chair and why I love it is that it does everything,” he says. “The chair follows you, so whatever you do it comes up with you, the suspension material makes it incredibly comfortable.” And in this way, he reflects that Herman Miller epitomises the “correct way of thinking in modern contemporary furniture, it has to be aesthetic but it also has to be functional – so with its new age, I really think it is the leader in its new product design.”